Victoria Barlow: Tibetan Buddhism Cult
Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2013 4:37 am
http://www.thenakedmonk.com/2012/09/30/ ... is-a-cult/
Victoria Barlow October 8, 2012 at 11:46 pm | Permalink | Reply
Dear Stephen,
Thank you for posting the link to the documentary. I feel overwhelmed with gratitude reading the articles on your website. Everything you have written is very validating and a relief to read. I felt so alone in my doubts and thoughts for so long.
Yes, in my opinion, Tibetan Buddhism is a cult. I say this after first becoming a Tibetan Buddhist in 1975, learning to speak, read Tibetan and living in various Tibetan communities in India for 6 years, studying continuously for those years with Tibetan lamas of all the four sects.
Tibetan Buddhism is, in my opinion, some sort of shamanistic overlay on top of Buddhism that lost its way in Tibet a thousand years ago. It devolved into being a political theocracy in Tibet with ‘monasteries’, packed full of tens of thousands of boys forced to enter by their families at a very young age, then physically and/or sexually abused, brainwashed into memorizing thousands of pages of text which made no sense to them, cut off from the world.
Breaking free of the cult was deeply painful on many levels, not least because none of the friends, those I thought were friends, ever wanted to discuss the abuses the various lamas did to me or other people I knew. I was told repeatedly it was either my fault the lamas sexually abused me or to just shut up about it because it was “bad for the dharmaâ€. The sangha I had taken refuge in was one that turned a blind eye to the abuses within the cult.
Perhaps more importantly, there was not any willingness among the cultees to discuss Tibetan Buddhism with critical thinking. Even in the last 12 years or so, whenever I attempted to post my doubts or negative experiences on any Tibetan Buddhist discussion forum my comments were responded to with rage, hatred and contempt. I was astounded by the mean spirited ill will. This included death threats and voodoo-like curses.
There is in Tibetan Buddhism abject magical thinking, obsessive obedience, endless rituals, a dizzy worshiping of names and lineages, routine taking of so-called tantric vows in mass ‘initiation’ rituals, consisting mostly of sitting there for hours, or in some cases, for months, while a lama sat on a chair mumbling something nobody understood and nobody discussed critically, sanely or coherently. There is a lot of narcissistic posturing about who does the most – or the most secret – rituals, who got what ‘wang’ from whom and how much razzle dazzle and how ‘high’ that lama was. It would be hilarious if it were not depressingly pathetic.
There is a lot of shaming about feeling many emotions by Tibetan Buddhists, as if it were wrong, spiritually wrong, to feel anger in particular but also to feel bitterness, grief and many other emotions. Contemporary psychological ideas about codependence, abusive relationships are not just unknown, there is an unwillingness to talk about psychology or the mind in any other way than the Tibetan Buddhist version. One woman having a mental/emotional breakdown at the Tibetan Library was given exorcisms. In fact, the colloquial word for Buddhist in Tibetan is the rather arrogant term, “insiderâ€, nang-wa. Anybody with a different perspective is an outsider.
The various Tibetan Buddhist cult leaders I met in the decade I lived in India, gave routine warnings about Vajrayana being a fast one way up the bamboo tube or one way into hell and yet routinely stated the lama was to be seen/experienced as the Buddha. This was after no meditation instruction was given, only being told to visualize “deitiesâ€. These so-called Vajrayana commands were largely to experience life with the obligation to see the lama as a Buddha and to spend an hour a day reciting a cinematic description of a lengthy visualization, that not to do so after attending one of these ‘initiation’ ceremonies was breaking sacred, lifelong vows and that would mean straight to the hell of hells. It struck me as very similar to fire and brimstone pulpit thumping of fundie Christians.
That said, I still am still deeply drawn to Buddhist meditation, shamatha and vipassana, Madhyamaka philosophy, the concepts of interdependent arising, sunyata, the Four Noble Truths, compassion for all sentient beings and a number of other Buddhist ideas.
Anyway, thank you Stephen for having the courage to speak your mind openly.
Stephen
Stephen October 9, 2012 at 1:26 pm | Permalink | Reply
Victoria: Yours is a very sad testament, but I can attest from my own experience that your words ring true. The more I recall those experiences and the more ire I attract through my writing, the more I see how accurate was the Buddha’s insight into the human condition. Out of fear we hang on to our illusions, see what we want to see and push aside the rest. We are driven by deep feelings that we subsequently rationalize with whatever theories are at hand — including those of the Buddha himself. The assumption that Buddhists necessarily promote what the Buddha promoted is not just wishful thinking, it’s also convenient, lazy and ultimately hurtful thinking. There is never good reason to put aside one’s own judgement, though it be imperfect.
Victoria Barlow October 8, 2012 at 11:46 pm | Permalink | Reply
Dear Stephen,
Thank you for posting the link to the documentary. I feel overwhelmed with gratitude reading the articles on your website. Everything you have written is very validating and a relief to read. I felt so alone in my doubts and thoughts for so long.
Yes, in my opinion, Tibetan Buddhism is a cult. I say this after first becoming a Tibetan Buddhist in 1975, learning to speak, read Tibetan and living in various Tibetan communities in India for 6 years, studying continuously for those years with Tibetan lamas of all the four sects.
Tibetan Buddhism is, in my opinion, some sort of shamanistic overlay on top of Buddhism that lost its way in Tibet a thousand years ago. It devolved into being a political theocracy in Tibet with ‘monasteries’, packed full of tens of thousands of boys forced to enter by their families at a very young age, then physically and/or sexually abused, brainwashed into memorizing thousands of pages of text which made no sense to them, cut off from the world.
Breaking free of the cult was deeply painful on many levels, not least because none of the friends, those I thought were friends, ever wanted to discuss the abuses the various lamas did to me or other people I knew. I was told repeatedly it was either my fault the lamas sexually abused me or to just shut up about it because it was “bad for the dharmaâ€. The sangha I had taken refuge in was one that turned a blind eye to the abuses within the cult.
Perhaps more importantly, there was not any willingness among the cultees to discuss Tibetan Buddhism with critical thinking. Even in the last 12 years or so, whenever I attempted to post my doubts or negative experiences on any Tibetan Buddhist discussion forum my comments were responded to with rage, hatred and contempt. I was astounded by the mean spirited ill will. This included death threats and voodoo-like curses.
There is in Tibetan Buddhism abject magical thinking, obsessive obedience, endless rituals, a dizzy worshiping of names and lineages, routine taking of so-called tantric vows in mass ‘initiation’ rituals, consisting mostly of sitting there for hours, or in some cases, for months, while a lama sat on a chair mumbling something nobody understood and nobody discussed critically, sanely or coherently. There is a lot of narcissistic posturing about who does the most – or the most secret – rituals, who got what ‘wang’ from whom and how much razzle dazzle and how ‘high’ that lama was. It would be hilarious if it were not depressingly pathetic.
There is a lot of shaming about feeling many emotions by Tibetan Buddhists, as if it were wrong, spiritually wrong, to feel anger in particular but also to feel bitterness, grief and many other emotions. Contemporary psychological ideas about codependence, abusive relationships are not just unknown, there is an unwillingness to talk about psychology or the mind in any other way than the Tibetan Buddhist version. One woman having a mental/emotional breakdown at the Tibetan Library was given exorcisms. In fact, the colloquial word for Buddhist in Tibetan is the rather arrogant term, “insiderâ€, nang-wa. Anybody with a different perspective is an outsider.
The various Tibetan Buddhist cult leaders I met in the decade I lived in India, gave routine warnings about Vajrayana being a fast one way up the bamboo tube or one way into hell and yet routinely stated the lama was to be seen/experienced as the Buddha. This was after no meditation instruction was given, only being told to visualize “deitiesâ€. These so-called Vajrayana commands were largely to experience life with the obligation to see the lama as a Buddha and to spend an hour a day reciting a cinematic description of a lengthy visualization, that not to do so after attending one of these ‘initiation’ ceremonies was breaking sacred, lifelong vows and that would mean straight to the hell of hells. It struck me as very similar to fire and brimstone pulpit thumping of fundie Christians.
That said, I still am still deeply drawn to Buddhist meditation, shamatha and vipassana, Madhyamaka philosophy, the concepts of interdependent arising, sunyata, the Four Noble Truths, compassion for all sentient beings and a number of other Buddhist ideas.
Anyway, thank you Stephen for having the courage to speak your mind openly.
Stephen
Stephen October 9, 2012 at 1:26 pm | Permalink | Reply
Victoria: Yours is a very sad testament, but I can attest from my own experience that your words ring true. The more I recall those experiences and the more ire I attract through my writing, the more I see how accurate was the Buddha’s insight into the human condition. Out of fear we hang on to our illusions, see what we want to see and push aside the rest. We are driven by deep feelings that we subsequently rationalize with whatever theories are at hand — including those of the Buddha himself. The assumption that Buddhists necessarily promote what the Buddha promoted is not just wishful thinking, it’s also convenient, lazy and ultimately hurtful thinking. There is never good reason to put aside one’s own judgement, though it be imperfect.